'Bows try to end two-game slide when they host HPU

By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer

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Today's game Who: Hawai'i Pacific (4-8) vs. Hawai'i (7-3) When: Today, 6:05 p.m. Where: Les Murakami Stadium Parking: $3 Tickets: $6 Blue and Orange levels; $5 Red level (adults); $4 Red level (65 and older, students K-12 and UH students with IDs). Radio: Live on KUMU 1500 TV: None. Series history: Hawai'i leads series, 21-2. Last season, UH beat HPU, 14-4, in the Easter Tournament. Probable starters: TBA vs. UH right-hander Nick Ponomarenko (1-0, 0.00)

The Hawai'i Rainbows (7-3) will try to snap a two-game losing streak against Division II Hawai'i Pacific (4-8) at 6:05 p.m. — 30 minutes earlier than usual — at Les Murakami Stadium.

It is UH's second leg of the intra-state series among Hawai'i programs. The Rainbows beat UH-Hilo, 8-2, on Feb. 11. They play the Vulcans again in a two-game series this weekend.

The Rainbows will start junior college transfer Nick Ponomarenko (1-0), a right-hander who has made only one relief appearance this season, pitching three scoreless innings.

Hawai'i coach Mike Trapasso said Ponomarenko would pitch for two to four innings before giving way to others who might work an inning or two.

Trapasso added that either Matt Inouye or Drew Jackson would start at catcher. Both freshmen have each made one start.

The mid-week games were designed to give UH a chance to play those who don't get much action during a weekend series.

Sea Warriors coach Allan Sato was undecided on his starting pitcher before last night's workout at Aloha Stadium. He said either right-hander Matt Paulsen (2-0, 3.72) or left-hander Blane Muraoka (0-1, 9.69) will get the call. Sato said Paulsen had some tenderness in his pitching arm after a weekend start against UH-Hilo. Paulsen is coming off a 4-0, seven-inning, complete-game win over the Vulcans.

Over the weekend, the Rainbows lost two of three games to Wichita State (9-1), which moved to No. 25 in Baseball America's rankings.

Meanwhile, the Sea Warriors split a four-game series at UH-Hilo after splitting two with the Vulcans at home the week before.

Freshman center fielder Geoffrey Say, a Moanalua High grad, is off to a hot start for the Sea Warriors. Say is batting .410 and leads the team with 10 runs and 16 hits.

"What he's done so far is somewhat of a surprise and somewhat not because we knew he could hit," Sato said. "It was just a matter of how long it would take for him to adjust (to college pitching)."

Sato said his team has been battle-tested this season. HPU won only once in a six-game series with Sonoma State, but said the Cossacks were "like a Division I team."

"They had three guys throwing 90 (mph)," he said.

Meanwhile, the Rainbows continue to get strong pitching, despite being without two of their top three projected starting pitchers. Hawai'i's staff, which has a 2.80 earned-run average, has given up 85 hits in 90 innings with a strikeouts-to-walks ratio of 72-to-20.

Trapasso said right-hander Colby Summer is about two weeks away from returning from elbow tendinitis.